


one beating heart

by ProfessorESP



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Angst, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, POV Second Person, doc title: yet another fucking fairy tale fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 08:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7837072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorESP/pseuds/ProfessorESP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is not Kai in this story, but it is not Gerda either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one beating heart

**Author's Note:**

> 4/23/17: Minor edits made for grammar and structure.

In your father’s house, you meet a boy who loves fairy tales, and one in particular. He tells you often the tale of a girl-spark who leaves home to rescue her closest friend, who was stolen away mid-breakthrough. He leans forward, enraptured by his own tale, and says: she searches for a boy who no longer exists.

He says: she seeks a boy who grows flowers instead of frost. He says: she seeks a boy who loves stories instead of snowflakes. He says: she seeks a boy who plays with girls instead of glaciers.

He says: the boy she knew could not exist with a heart full of glass.

Your father sends him home, and you do not watch him leave.

* * *

In the south, there is a girl whose garden sings like an orchestra. Every gust of wind sends a susurrus of notes that clash and mesh and blow through the windows like wind chimes. You walk along the flowerbeds in the mornings, listening to them serenade the morning dew, and the bed of lilies bends towards you and says: there is a boy you have forgotten.

It says: he lays in a nest of paper and dreams of swarming bees. It says: he lays in a web of icicles and dreams of white maidens. It says: he lays in a bed of swords and dreams of thunderstorms.

It says: he needed you, and loved you, and you turned him away.

The girl cuts the lily heads with her garden sheers, and you watch them drop, one by one.

* * *

In the west, there is a princess that lives in a birdcage the size of a palace. Feathered princes and kings flock to impress her with their song, but she sings first and strikes them dumb with her own. You sit at her right hand, as silent as a swan, and though cocks and cardinals are quelled by your glare there is one crow who looks at you and says: I know what you are looking for.

He says: there is a boy who threads thunder like thistledown. He says: there is a boy who leashes lightning like a lapdog. He says: there is a boy who spits snowflakes like songs.

He says: you know that you need him, and that he needs you, and you cannot forget him.

The princess banishes him from the palace, and you laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

* * *

In the north, there is a queen with knives for fingers who rules an island of pirates. She steals you away to her home and parades her menagerie of tamed, terrified animals before you, laughing at your shock and your rage. They are all silent and afraid save for the reindeer, who looks to you and says: I can give you what you want.

He says: there is a boy in his family’s mountains, guarded by birds made of lightning. He says: there is a boy in his father’s fortress, surrounded by bees built from snowflakes. He says: there is a boy in his Lady’s castle, watched by women sculpted from glacial ice.

He says: I can take you to him, set me free, let me go.

The queen cuts him open, just like all the others, and you turn your head.

* * *

In the east, there are three women made of bones, of smoke, of metal. They point to the mountains and say: there you will find him. They say: he is building a throne of out of ice, drop by drop. They say: he is making eternal life, one snowflake at a time. They say: he is freezing to death, night after night after night.

You look to the sky, and you do not care.


End file.
